Se BAe ee efe cre ee ens ene ene ene ene ens ene eno ofe 


NORTH 4 
CAROLINA %& 
FOR CHRIST 


By JOHN E.' WHITE. 


MS SS SSE EE ES 


I. Patriotic. 
iT, Banthtopic. 
III. Denominational. 


IV. Christian. 


GL43 
Kg 
was 
To the Baptist People of North Carolina : 


This tract is written with a four-fold purpose. 
To give— ; 

1. fleasure and encouragement to those 
whose hearts are already in the work of State 
Missions. 

2. Information to the many brethren who 
desire informatiou about the work. 

3. Stimulus to those who are only partially 
interested in State Missions, of whom there are 
not a few. 

4. Light for the great host of Baptists in 
North Carolina who either know nothing of the 
work, or, who knowing, care nothing and do 
nothing. 

These are four good and convincing arguments 
for State Missions in North Carolina. The first 
is good, the second better, the third better still, 
and the fourth is irresistible. 

Surely these taken together form an argu- 
meut which will appeal with practical effect to 
every Baptist in the State. 


I. The first of these is Patriotic, 


North Carolinians have always been patriotic. 
Our State pride is so strong that it smacks of 
provincialism. Some declare that North Caro- 
lina is conservative, another says she is not. | 
But whether conservative or radical, she, forthe © 
most part, is satisfied to be North Carolina— 
the home of a true, generous and liberty-loving | 
people. | 

‘“Tho’ scorners may sneer at, 
And witlings defame her, 


Yet our hearts swell with gladness, 
Whenever we namie her.’’ 


The battles that scorched her bosom in | 
the revolution bear testimony to her valor in | 
war. The Mecklenburg Declaration is a witness | 
that her people love liberty, and are patriotic | 
enough to go alone in its defense if needs be. 


a 


3 


(a). The very reasons that have made them 
foremost actors in every bloody trial through 
which our country has passed, the very reasons 
which fired them to repel invasion from their 
own borders, must apply with greater force to 
the effort State Missions is making to drive out 
wickedness, vice and hurtful error from their 
midst. It is poor patriotism of which war is the 
only expression. It is poor patriotism which 
exerts itself only for political blessings. There 
are other enemies besside the armies of foreign 
countries. North Carolina has nothing to fear 
from the armed powers of Europe. Our real 
enemy is the armed powers of hell, which be- 
seige the characters of our people, our public 
men and our youth, laying snares for our wo- 
men and debauching our homes. 

Patriotism of the truest type is not mere love 
of North Carolina’s ‘‘rocks and rills, her woods 
and templed hills.’’ 

True patriotism is love of her people. ‘‘ Not 
country, but countrymen,” is the motto of the 
patriot. Any effort to render one’s countrymen 
happier and better, that improves manhood and 
womanhood, that drives out vice and puts in 
virtue, that lights the lamp of knowledge and 
character in darkened homes and hearts, zs pa- 
triolic. And this is the work of State Missions. 

The politician may be a patriot, but he gen- 
erally is not. For politics in these days 1s a 
profession of supreme selfishness. 

The meeting of our Board of Missions is of 
more real benefit to the people of North Caro- 
lina, than the convening of alegislature. Dr. C. 
Durham in the last ten years of his life did a 
more patriotic, a more truly constructive work 
for the State than any politician who has held 
office in the State since the war. 

(6). The work of State Missions is patriotic 
in preserving the peace and integrity of our 
people. 

Your money goes in taxes to support courts, 
jails, militia and police. Your money in State 


WAKE FOREST COLLEGB 


4 


Missions makes courts, jails, militia and police 
unnecessary. 

The Gospel of Christ preached in every neigh- 
borhood in North Carolina is worth more in the 
protection of life and property and the preserv- 
ation of peace than a standing army in every 
county. 

When you help to build a church in a desti- 
tute community you are building a fortress of. 
truth and righteousness which, without frown- 
ing, drives off sin and selfishness and helps to 
build there a State. A Church of Christ isa 
standing menace to the kingdom of Satan, a 
rebuke to lawlessness, a deterrent of crime and 
a most powerful and effective remonstrance 
against disorder and riot wherever it stands. 
In the last twenty years our State Missionaries 
have preached the gospel in over 3,000 destitute 
places in North Carolina, and have built on 
mission fields over 500 churches. 

(c). No more patriotic work could be under- 
taken than that we are doing in our factory 
towns and cities. 

We often boast that our population is homo- 
genious—native born. The day for such con- 
gratulation is passing rapidly. The tide of im- 
migration has turned its flow from the West 
toward the South. North Carolina is receiving 
daily a large part of this flood. These foreign 
people come with foreign customs and foreign 
ideas. They congregate in our towns aud cities, 
and every day that leaves them without the 
gospel of Christ strengthens their power to sow 
evil seed and to influence, with their poisonous 
doctrines of irreverence Sabbath desecration, 
socialism and anarchy, our native-born laboring 
people with whom they are thrown in factory 
communities. Our State Mission Board (as the 
churches enable it) is doing more and more 
work in the evangelization of these people. 
This is not the only phase of our factory work 
which is demanding of State Missions patriotic 
attention and prayerful study. 


Mos Pe, SAR 


5 


There are hundreds of children to be rescued 
from ignorance and its attendant vices. These 
children are to be citizens. There is the work 
of developing the spirit of Christ both in labor 
and capital. In averting conflict between labor 
and capital political economy has proven a 
failure. The principles of Christ alone are suf- 
ficient for these things. In maintaining mis- 
sions around our factories we are taking counsel 

-with wisdom, and by this means only can we 
prevent the lamentable conditions which have 
brought reproach and disgrace upon other States 
where the Gospel Economy does not prevail. 


Il. The Second of These Arguments is 
Philanthropic. 


Philanthropy is a fellow feeling for one’s fel- 
low man. In Titus 3d chapter and 4th verse it 
is written: ‘‘But after that the kindness and 
philanthropy of God our Saviour appeared.”’ 
That means Atonement—Christ putting Him- 
selfin our place. Fellow feeling. Philanthropy 
is better than what we call charity. It aims at 
the best in man and the best for man. 

That is only the base counterfeit of philan- 
thropy that expends its strength on the tem- 
poral and material interests of people. True 
philanthropy is thoroughly Christian, which, 
while it labors to clothe the naked and feed the 
hungry, yet mostly strives to remind the object 
of its care that ‘‘man shall not live by bread 
alone.’’ 

There are hundreds of places in North Caro- 
lina where the people are stricken with a ca- 
lamity—the calamity of mourning without a 
comforter, and of the spirit of nakedness and 
heaviness because they know not to praise and 
worship God. 

The program of State Missions is, by the 
preaching of the Gospel and the building of 
churches, to comfort all that mourn: to give 
unto them ‘‘ beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for 


6 


mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit 
of heaviness.” 

The very same spirit that would make it im- 
possible to refuse a loaf of bread to a distressed 
and famished woman begging at our door ought - 
to shame us out of a half-hearted and grudging 
support of the work for the Godless and church- 
less in the great Mission fields of our State. 

We have our pastors, who minister to us and 
instruct us in the word. We have our own 
churches in which we worship God, our Sun- 
day-schools for the study of the Bible. 

We rejoice for ourselves and our children for 
such blessed privileges. Does it not prove us 
unworthy of such advantages if we are not 
willing to assist the work which gives the Bible, 
the preacher and the church to our own people 
with which they are not able to provide them- 
selves? Does it not appear to youthat as a man 
—as a woman, not to say as a Christian—with 
a man’s heart and the heart of a woman—the 
need of our destitute Mission fields is a matter 
of concern and interest to you, and that the 
work of State Missions deserves your practical 
sympathy? 

Do you sympathize with the orphan? Does 
it really appeal to your heart to be told that 
there are over 500 orphan children ia North 
Carolina without a homie or a place to live? 

One of the sure ways to increase the capacity 
of our Orphanage is to give to State Missions. 

Our Orphanage at Thomasville is the fruit of 
wise State Mission work in a very striking sense. 
It had its conception in an Association wrung 
from error and sin by State Mission§ in the last 
twenty years. It was born in an Association 
(the Tar River) in which to-day over $2,000 are 
being expended in State Mission work. Seven 
of the buildings at Thomasville which shelter 
the fatherless children there were erected by 
the gifts of men in that Association. 

He who gives to State Missions, besides con- 
tributing to the hungry and unfed souls of 


/ 


hundreds who have neither Gospel nor church, 
most surely puts bread into the mouths of hun- 
gry children and clothes upon their backs, and 
helps to fit them for life. 
This is Philanthrophy—and at the same time 
Christianity. 
Ill. The Third of These Arguments is 


Denominational. 


If Baptists do not look after Baptist interests, 
we cannot expect other people todo so. The 
history of the past teaches two very important 
lessons—God reliance and self reliance. It is 
proper to appeal to Baptists for the support of 
Baptist work. State Missions has been, and 
still is, the chief agency of North Carolina Bap- 
tists for publishing Baptist views, promulgating 
Baptist principles and establishing the Truth as 
Baptists hold it. From the first, our State Mis- 
sionarieS have been generally men of the type 
that did not shun to declare the whole counsel 
of God without fear on favor. In discussing 
Baptist growth in North Carolina, let no Bap- 
tist forget the rock from which he is hewn, and 
that the only pledge we have for. future growth 
and progress is inthe maintainance in our- 
selves and the transmission of it to our children 
of this same spirit which is fostered by State 
Missions. Baptists in North Carolina owe very 
littie to the help of outside circumstance. 
What we are as a people, we have beconie be- 
cause we placed loyalty to Christ, and obedi- 
ence to His revealed Truth, above social advan- 
tage, political power and every other consider- 
ation of pride and policy. What we have, we 
have won—not by fortune or subsidy, but by 
dogged firniness and faith iu God. 

Now, if our forefathers gladly suffered shame 
and imprisonment rather than yield their right 
to hold and preach certain New Testament 
doctrines, shall we in North Carolina to-day 
think lightly of the maintainance of a supre- 
macy which they so nobly and so dearly won? 


8 


If ‘‘the truth, the whole truth and nothing 
but the truth,’”’ was thus held dear by them, 
shall the establishment of that truth where it is 
not known, or where it is loosely held, be less 
dear to us? 

(a.) State Missions Promote Doctrinal Sound- 
ness. One of the principles underlying our 
State Mission work is that every inch of ground 
in North Carolina where teachings of the 
New Testament are not obediently held and 
obediently preached, is missionary ground 
for Baptists. Our field is just this large and no 
larger. 

‘“*With malice toward none, but with charity 
for all,’ holding fast the faith as God gives 
us to see it in State Missions, we aim at noth- 
ing less than the prevalence, sooner or later, of 
the Truth as it isin the New Testament in every 
nook and corner of North Carolina. 

Our State Mission Board is not composed of 
compromisers or trucklers. We nail this toour 
mast head: ‘‘ Kither®very man ought to bea 
Baptist, or else no man ought to be a Baptist.’’ 
Baptist are either right or they are wrong. If 
they are right, then, since every man ought to 
be right, every man ought to be a Baptist. If, 
on the other hand Baptists are wrong, then, 
since no man ought to be wrong, no man 
ought to be a Baptist.’ And we insist that 
there is no escape from this alternative. And 
we appeal to every Baptist who believes Bap- 
tists are right that he ought to be agressive in 
propagating the faith himself, personally, and 
through State Missions. 

The influence of State Missions is to discour- 
age among our people all prating about any 
unity of denominations which is secured by 
concession or compromise. The unity of “one 
Lord, one faith, one baptism,’’ is the only 
unity desired by Baptists. 

Our State Missionaries arte not commissioned 
to talk about uni:ormity in creed and practice 
in the different denominations in North Caro- 


9 


lina. There is something better than unifor- 
mity for which we stand. We make the same 
demand on others we make on ourselves, and 
that is conformity, not to our view for our sakes, 
but to the view and teaching of the New Testa- 
ment for Christ’s sake. This is the only safe 
ground for Christians in North Carolina. 

We rejoice, yea! and will rejoice wherever 
and by whomsoever any part of Christ’s truth 
is held. And we grieve and protest whenever 
and by whomsoever any part of it is dishonored 
or repudiated. 

Our State Mission work is a work of agres- 
sion. It is ¢ke agressive work of our denomi- 
nation in North Carolina. 

Our State Missionaries are preaching Baptist 
doctrines and insisting on Baptist principles 
more constantly and more vigorously than any 
other class of our pastors. On many of our 
State Mission fields the Missionaries are fight- 
ing practically the same battle Paul Palmer 
and the brethren of his day faught in 1730—en- 
during in many instances the same hardships, 
encountering the same odds and struggling 
against the same opposition. It seems to be 
a fact, commonly agreed to, that our denomina- 
tional vigor and life has always increased or 
decreased in proportion to our fidelity to Bap- 
tist doctrines and our zeal in preaching them. 
So constantly has our State Mission work had 
reflex influence on our denominational life in 
the maintainance of sound doctrine among us. 

The churches in the towns and at the centres 
where the almost inevitable tendency is to let 
up on vigorous preaching of distinctive doc- 
trines, are stimulated by a vigorous State Mis- 
sion work, the echoes from which tell of a 
struggle for the truth against error, prejudice 
and persecution. Andon the Denomination at 
large the effect is no less marked. State Mis- 
sions promotes loyalty, stiffens the back-bone, 
and keeps living in our people that old pioneer 
spirit which we forget always at our peril. 


IO 


(6.) State Misstons a Prime Factor in our 
Numerical and Financial Growth. That the 
Baptists of North Carolina are numerically great 
is a fact of common acknowledgement and 
remark. It is a fact of which no unseemly 
boast should be made, but which very properly 
should excite our gratitude to God and encour- 
age us in our present labors. 

Almost miraculous it seems to us now, that 
Baptists in their early history in North Caro- 
lina managed to exist at all, so fierce and pow- 
erful were the forces with which they conten- 
ded. What rash prophet, looking at the mere 
handful of men and women who were all there 
were of us then, would have predicted that the 
day would come when the Baptists would in 
North Carolina uearly outnumber all other 
Denominations combined ? 

The latest statistics published by the Gov- 
ernment, gives as the sum total of all church 
members in the State 673,795. Of these, 326,- 
971 are Baptists. 

According to the last census, the Missionary 
Baptists in Wake County alone, outnumber by 
167 members all the Episcopalians, Catholics 
and Jews in the whole State of North Carolina. 

The regular or Missionary Baptists of the 
whole State are more than twenty-four times 
as numerous as the anti-mission Baptists, more 
than thirty-five times as many as the Episco- 
palians, eight times as many as all sorts of 
Presbyterians and 16,962 more than all sorts of 
Methodists, white and colored. 

Now, with these facts before us, look back 
just 60 years. In 1830 there were only 15,000 
Baptists in the State. In 60 years we have in- 
creased over 300,000 souls in membership. 

The question arises: ‘‘ What denominational 
instrumentality has done most to bring about 
this phenomenal increase in growth?’’ Un- 
hesitatingly auy well informed Baptist will say, 
‘‘State Missions.”’ 

The State Mission Board was organized in 


prosecuted only teebdly, tor lack of denomina- 
tional co-operation and means. At no time 
under this Board were there more than five 
Missionaries. 

In 1860 the Board was reorganized under 
the name of ‘‘Board of Missions’? and a Cor- 
responding Secretary appointed. For five years, 
following the chaos and confusion of the war, 
almost nothing was done. So that the real 
work of organized State Mission effort may be 
dated from 1870. 

In the ten years that followed, under the 
leadership of Drs. J. D. Hufham and J. B. 
Richardson as Secretaries, State Mission work 
was pushed with a vigor unknown before. And 
in that ten years the denomination nearly 
doubled its white membership, by increasing 
from 40 000 to 75,000. Six new Associations 
were organized, made necessary by enlarge- 
ments mainly through our State Mission work. 

From 1880 to 1890 the Board increased the 
number of its Missionaries from 23 in 1880 to 
108 in 1890. Under the leadership of Jno. E. 
Ray and Dr. C. Durham, Secretaries, it pushed 
its work into 32 of the 39 Associations connected 
with.the Convention. In these ten years the 
denomination again doubled its (white) mem- 
bership, going from 75,000 (1880) to 150,000 
(1890). Fifteen new Associations were orga- 
nized, in which in 1890 there were 305 churches 
and 33,209 members. From 767 churches in 
1880 we weut to over I100 in I8go. 

And as we have grown in numbers we have 
also increased in financial strength and benevo- 
lence. 

By the wise policy of the Convention the 
Board of Missions and Sunday-schools has 
charge also of Home and Foreign Mission col- 
lections, and in enlarging State Missions con- 
tributions the gifts to every other object has 
been increased. 


12 


As facts and figures are the best foundation 
for opinions about our growth and development 
in benevolence, the Treasurer’s report for the 
past eleven years are tabulated for the encour- 
agement of all who are interested in State 
Missions: 


1886. 1887. 1888. 1889. £90. 1891. 1892. 1893. 1894. 1895. 1896. 
Bate | | 5 Ze ; ; 
Missions $ 8,059 27$ 9.331 13 $11,454 04.$11,242 80 $12,348 31/$14,028 17 $14,272 95% 13.309 87/8 14,332 63/$ 11.402 58% 9,961 03 
Home 
Missions | 1,620 31] 2,059 72} 2,250 04) 2,209 75] 3,269 18] 3,544 52 6,965 98| 3,553 19] 2,965 00 4,776 89) 4,490 46 
Foreign 
Missions | 5,794 97] 6,548 34; 8,050 14, 5,961 12} 8,902 06] 9,255 80, 9,869 83) 12,017 27|- 7,815 92 8,207 06 8,306 63 
| 
a oe 3,206 57] 31750 231 39559 20) 3,674 51] 3,620 75] 3,344 32, 22,705 83! 3,235 69] 3,445 17| 13.331 24, 17,785 66 
unday 
Schools__ 5,882 49] 6,528 62) 5,865 69) 5,516 83 6,747 21| 6,614 66, 6,838 20, 5,659 56 6,115 62 5.349 97) 6098 88 
Colportage | eee ee ea | a eee 1,299 46} 1,586 22) 1,364 99] 1,011 31 480 76, 33 66 43 04) 222. Sanne = | 33,067 92 
Orphanage 2,179 15] 1,945 33) 1,602 54] 1,265 35] ‘15,060 52/ 14.695 59) 12,866 30 11,169 12 9,937 40} 10.584 57)~---------- 
Ministers’ | 
Rie Lie fee re a es eee = Nae RE Poe nee aa ee 638 83] 1,075 05, 5,598 61 989 70 590 47 741 00 
Miscel- | | 
EET 853 19 384 86 55 Il EL 772 77 92 23 40 499 92, 922 00} 85,0c0 00 8,507 84} 80,064 62 
| Se Se SI on Ba ae Eee ere) ie <a al eae eS 
t 
Total_.-_ $27,595 95 $30,548 23 $34,136 22$31,574 30 $51,390 94,$53.156 60$75.574 82$124,307 36\$126,487 18)/$ 139,400 22'5140,691 00 


We have increased in benevolence in 


10 years from less than $50,000 to all objects to $140,691.00. 


14 


From the view of this progress, every Bap- 
tist should turn with swelling heart to God, 
who has led us through all to all we have grown 
to be. 

Nor is this progress ended. The material 
prosperity of the State, and its large increase 
in population is opening wider doors of oppor- 
tunity for our State Mission work. Wewho are 
living now have it in our power to determine 
what North Carolina will be denominationally 
and religiously one hundred years hence. 
Whether the people of our State shall be Chris- 
tians and whetherthey shall have a Christianity 
that recognizes no authority but the word of 
God; whether or not their churches shall ac- 
knowledge no head but Christ, and whether or 
not they shall know no baptism but the burial 
of the believer in water,in perpetual commemo- ~ 
ration of the burial and resurection of the great 
Head of the church; all remains for the 150,000 
white Baptists already in Christ’s Churches 
throughout North Carolina to say. 

The history of State Missions willin these years 
to come, as it has been in the years gone, most 
largely determine the history of North Carolina 
Baptists. 


IV. The Fourth of These Arguments is Christian. 


This is the last and greatest of all. North 
Carolina for Christ! is an echo from Calvary, 
the call of an unsatiated Gospel. If you area 
Baptist and a truly converted mau or woman, 
you must have it in the creed of your heart. 

(a.) State Missions fosters the spirit of Mis- 
stons, which ts the spirtt of Christ. 

An anti mission man isan anti-Christian man. 
An anti-mission church is essentially opposed 
to the manifest teaching of the New Testiment. 
There is no room for argument on this point. 
The denial of Missions is nothing less, in the 
sight of God and men, than infidelity. The 
truth that the Gospel is a Missionary Gospel, 
meant for all men and for none so much as 


15 


for those who do not have it, is not sec- 
ondary, something which may or may not 
be inferred by Christians after they have ac- 
cepted Christianity. But itis primary, central, 
vital, interwoven with the very heart of Chris- 
tianity, part and parcel of its life. You can- 
not really accept it at all, unless you accept 
this with it. State Missions is the accent North 
Carolina Baptists put on this great fact. 

The spirit of Missions in the New Testameut 
had its first expression in what we call State 
Missions. State Missions, therefore, are funda- 
mentally Christian, because 

(6.) Lt ts Scripturad. 

Andrew found his own brother Simon and 
said unto him: ‘‘ We have found the Messias.”’ 
And he brought him to Jesus. 

In State Missions we are finding our own 
brethren and bringing them to Jesus. 

For the advancement of State Missions in his 
day Paul, while a Missionary among the heath- 
en, said ‘‘to the Jew (State Missions) first and 
also to the Greek ‘(Foreign Missions). And 
again ‘‘I could wish that myself were accursed 
from Christ for my brethren, my kindsmen, 
according to the flesh.”’ 

And it was our Divine Master who said to his 
people: ‘‘ Ye shall be witnesses of me, both in 
Jerusalem (City Missious) and all Judea, (State 
Missions) and Samaria (the States around— 
Home Missions) and unto the uttermost parts 
of the earth, (Foreign Missions). 

In those last great hours, after His resurrec- 
tion and just before His ascension, the Master 
said that the Gospel ‘‘should be preached in 
_ His name among all nations beginning al Jeru- 
salem. 

State Missions is the basis of all Missions, 
not only in the scripture, but also in common 
sense and experience. 

There is and can be, in no sense, antagonism 
between the claims of State and Foreign Mis- 
sions. If State Missions did not contribute to 


16 


the spread of the Gospel in all the world, the 
work would be worse than a failure. But so 
true is it that a vigorous Home Mission work 
alone can make possible a vigorous Foreign 
Mission work that a man who is unfriendly to 
our State Board of Missions and its work, is 
striking a blow at Foreign Missions, 

It was this view that Dr. Matthew T. Yates 
expressed when he said: ‘‘The hope of the 
heathen world under God depends upon well 
organized and well trained churches at home.”’ 

It was this same view that Dr. Austin Phelps 

expressed when he said: ‘If I were a mission- 
ary in China, my first and most important 
prayer every morning should be for Missions 
in America for the sake of China.”’ 
. It has been truly said: ‘‘ Five hundred years 
of time in the process of the world’s salvation 
may depend on the next twenty years of Uni- 
ted States history.”’ 

May we not say, with some reason too, as we 
look back over the last twenty years of wonder- 
ful progress in Missions, and as we look at our 
present rapidly growing churches and Foreign 
Mission spirit, that five hundred years of time 
in the process of the salvation of some heathen 
countries may depend largely under God on 
the next twenty years of North Carolina Bap- 
tist Mission work? 

North Carolina has contributed more to For- 
eign Missions than any of her sister States in 
the Southern Baptist Convention. Not in 
money, but in men—in the life of Yates and the 
thirty-five men and women she has given for a 
lost world. And it is thought that this has 
been the outcome most largely from a Mission 
spirit begotten in our churches and among our 
people by the emphasis we have put on State 
Missions since 184o. 

(c.) State Missions appeals to us asa Chris- 
tian work, because in North Carolina it is the 
Gospel to the poor. 

‘‘Tell John that the poor have the Gospel 


17 


preached to them,’’ said Christ. This was the 
sign by which John was to know He was indeed 
the Messiah. And by this sign we know that 
State Missions is the work of Christ, and, there- 
fore, demands the support of those who love 
Him. 

A certain class of people have charged it as 
a reproach to us that we were poor, and that 
our churches were filled with the poor people 
of the State. A Bishop in New York recently 
said: ‘‘The Lord has given us the rich.’’ The 
Baptists have another kind of boast: ‘‘ The 
Lord has given us the poor.’’ That we have 
them in great numbers cannot be denied, nor 
can it be questioned that we came by them 
honestly. We have followed the examples of 
John, of Jesus and of all the Apostles, and 
preached the Gospel to the poor, all back of the 
mountain sides, down the valleys, along the 
creeks we have gone preaching the Gospel. 
God has been with us and the great common 
people have turned to us. 

State Missions is the work of preaching the 
Gospel to the destitute of our State. It is, 
therefore, in the name of Him who had not 
where to lay His head that we come to His 
people in behalf of State Missions, the neg- 
lected and the needy of our State. 

(dq) State Missions presents an irresistable 
argument for its support to Christians, because 
it brings to unsaved men and women the knowl- 
edge of a Saviour; to the poor and destitute of 
many communities the advantages of a Sunday- 
school for themselves and their children, the 
blessings of a New Testament Church, and to 
our State the Kingdom of God, which is 
righteousness, joy and peace. 

We submit three questions to the consciences 
of each of our brethren and sisters who are 
members of Baptist Churches. 

rst. Ave You a Christian ? 

Have you been born again? Is Christ your 
dersonal Saviour? Do you feel that what He 


18 


has brought to your life is its greatest!blessing ? 
If you are a Christian indeed, must it not be 
true of you that you waut every other man to| 
be a Christian? Here in our own State there 
are over one million souls lost, without Christ. 
Thousands of these, if saved at all, will have| 
to be reached through the instrumentality of 
State Missions 

Who can Christ depend on to help in this 
work if He cannot depend upon you? 

2d. Are Youa Baptist? 

Do you belong to a church which has no| 
creed outside of the New Testament and which| 
acknowledges no Head or Authority but Christ ?) 
If so, do you not feel that the work of State 
Missions deserves your support? How much 
do you love Baptist doctrines and Baptist prin- 
ciples? The answer to this question very’ 
largely will be answered by the amount of 
your means you give to support the work which 
propogates these doctrines and establishes the 
churches to which these great truths are com-| 
niitted. 

3a. Do You Pray? 

If so, do you not sometimes say: ‘‘ 7hy King- 
dom Come.’?? And do you not mean that you 
want it to come in North Carolina? State Mis- 
sions is helping to bring that Kingdom— 
has brought it to hundreds of places already,| 
and has 87 devoted servants of the Gospel at 
work this year to bring it to other places in 
our beloved State. a 

One of our Missionaries recently went to a) 
Cross-roads place in Ashe County to preach 
the Gospel. It was a place of hardened sin- 
ners. Nochurch. The only public places wer 
a still-house and a bar-room. He secured per 
mission to preach the Gospel of Christ in th 
empty still-house. He told them the story o 
the love of Christ—that old, old story, so fullo 
sweetness and power. By degrees, he got 
few of the people to hear his message. B 
degrees he won their hearts for the Lord. H 


4 : 

aptized the bar-keeper and the still-owner in 
‘he spring branch that ran near. And then, 
javing risen to newness of life, they went back 
jand tore down the still house and bar-room, 
.eaving only the four rough rock cornerstones. 
JOn these they built a Baptist Church—and 
‘here to-day the white banner of Immanuel 
floats over a redeemed neighborhood. The 
Kingdom of God came there. 

Oh! if the brethren and sisters could know 
all the triumphs of State Missions, could see 
the field and its needs, could see the wide door 
of opportunity opened to us, it would require 
no begging or pleading to secure the money to 
send laborers into the rich harvest, and in a 
generation we would bring North Carolina to 
Christ, because we would bring Christ to North 
Carolina. 


TO PASTORS. 


If you can use this tract to aid the wor 
among your people, drop me a postal statin ~ 
the number desired, and they will be sent 
gratis, postpaid, at once. 


JNO. E. WHITE, 
1897. Cor. Secretary. 


